The passage that I selected that was difficult to understand was the passage on page 27. The reason why I selected this is that it was difficult to comprehend what the author was trying to say. As well, the language used made it confusing to understand what was going on. For example, “one night, flittering my eyes, I saw one with a red carnation in his buttonhole.” this sentence made no sense to me because it just appeared out of the blue. To me, this had no correlation to the previous sentence before it. In addition, the text was random in its word choice, for instance, it compared his bowels to a turtle. These comparisons are very abstract and not commonly compared to one another. Although, I knew that the overlining theme was supposed to be the prosses of beheading it was unclear to see this while reading. There were various topics discussed within the passage that did not relate to the message that the author was trying to portray. The way I dealt with this passage was through rereading it multiple times in order to improve my comprehension. Also, I read the text aloud which made it easier to understand because I was able to pause at the commas and properly follow the punctuations.
– Julienne Guzman
I agree with you that the style of writing is very confusing. There seem to be a constant pattern of random sentence that doesn’t connect to the previous ones which makes this book very difficult to comprehend. I find myself spending a lot of time trying tot figure out what that random sentence have to do with the meaning of the book. However, I think this pattern of confusion and unrelated references adds to the overall meaning of the chapters and the identity of the characters.
I also agree with your writing. Sometimes, sentences in the “Nightwood” are highly complicated, so the reader needs to read the sentence several times in order to understand it. Even when Barnes introduce characters of “Nightwood”, she does not allow us to read easily. We should make efforts to identify the character’s personality, the background of the character, or the feeling of the character.
I totally agree with you on Barnes style of writing. In the Preface, it stated that to truly understand Nightwood, we have to read the book more than once. I am using Nightwood in my final project and I have to be re-reading the sentences to comprehend the idea which is presented. I also agree with Sumaiya’s comment that it does adds to the overall meaning of the chapters though.
I totally agree with you on Barnes style of writing. In the Preface, it stated that to truly understand Nightwood, we have to read the book more than once. I am using Nightwood in my final project and I have to be re-reading the sentences to comprehend the idea which is presented.